The Life Ledger

Fitness is a way of life.

No change in weight. I rode the exercise bike for 30 minutes; still haven’t taken my mountain bike to the shop, but the weather’s been crap anyway. I had two bars, cottage cheese, grapes and a quesedilla.

I got acquainted with Traineo today; it has some features I like, but isn’t enough to be a one-stop shop for me. I like the community building up there, especially since the fatblogging community seems to be gravitating there thanks to the b5media group I mentioned yesterday, but it falls way short on keeping a diet journal. I’ve got a full review of several online journals coming your way, including a comparison matrix, screenshots and my opinion of the “best.” Hopefully, I’ll get that done this weekend.

By the way, in case you’re wondering why title format change, this is apparently what fattrackr looks for in RSS feeds to automatically update your weight. Sounds like a neat feature; haven’t checked yet to see if it’s working. I don’t know how far those guys are intending on taking this service, but personally I think they’re well on their way to having an innovative, unique product. I look forward to future enhancements.

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The trend has reversed! I signed up with Traineo and joined the b5media group. I’m pretty impressed with Traineo, but still intend on reviewing a group of journal sites to get a feel for what is out there. I think I’ve lost sight of my caloric intake, which is why I was trending up - I’ve gotten pretty lax with snacking healthy foods (even if it’s “healthy”, it’s still got calories) and my portion sizes. It was a wake-up call to see how quickly I can start reversing all the hard work I’ve accomplished.

For exercise, I’ve got a racquetball court lined up for tonight.

I’ve started spreading the word about the Fatbloggers Gazette - you can participate by submitting an article, telling me about a good article you read or spreading the word.

Thanks to Anne at downto62.wordpress.com for pointing me to fattrackr, a new statistics tool for keeping track of your weight loss. I have been using Bellygraph so far, but looking about for something better. Fattrackr, which offers sidebar widgets for progress tracking, definitely has promise. Here’s what the dashboard looks like:

I like the Fattrackr widget, and think it’s got possibilities. I’d like to see configurable colors, a widget that shows a chart instead of the progress meter, and the ability to enter historical weight-loss data for people like me who have already lost weight. This is a new service though, so I’m sure there are changes aplenty in the works.

I’ve also noticed a Wordpress plugin related to the Hacker’s Diet, but as it appears to be a dashboard-only plugin I haven’t tried it yet. I’ll add it to my round-up of tracking tools later this week.

As a reminder, here’s what my Bellygraph chart looks like:

Hopefully I have reversed the upward trend. My wife made baked chicken last night (scrumptious) and we exercised together using a Denise Austin video (I don’t remember the title, I’ll have to add it later). The abs workout on the video kicks my ass.

I’ll ride the stationary bike later today for at lesat 30 minutes, and I’m planning on taking my mountain bike to the store for its yearly checkup this week. Can’t wait to start biking again!